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Abstract
Associations between maternal nutritional factors including energy intake, body mass index, postpartum weight change, and anemia status and maternal-infant interactions were examined in 124 mother-infant pairs from a marginally malnourished, rural Kenyan population. Anemic mothers spent less time holding and caring for their infants than nonanemic mothers. Mothers who retained their pregnancy weight gain or were able to gain weight postpartum spent more time looking at their infants than mothers who lost weight postpartum. Maternal food intake per se was not associated with patterns of infant interaction. Lower birth weight infants were held more, cared for more, and looked at face-to-face more by their mothers. Older sisters tended to be more involved in infant interactions with higher birth weight infants.
Acknowledgment
This research was supported by United States Agency for International Development Grant No. DAN-1309-G-SS-1070-00 and US AID Cooperative Agreement No. DAN 1309-A-9090-00. We would like to acknowledge and thank Dr. Nimrod Bwibo who was the co-director of the Kenya CRSP Project, and Dr. Ben Browdy for his invaluable assistance.